So welcome 2012, and bien adieu 2011!!

I started 2011 by ending a memorable bike trip around southern Indian peninsula. Subsequent to the trip I did a few fundraising dinners for Teach for India. The tour of south India was a not only an un-forgettable adventure which gave me a new perspective of India but at the same time we raised substantial funds for Teach for India! Thank you to everyone who made that trip possible.

As the fund-raising dinners tapered, I was elated to host my sister and brother-in-law. After years of cajoling, this year Vaishali and Lalesh did visit Vaidehi, Vivek and myself in US! We had a great time together and did  few family adventures including trip to the mountains, and a weekend in Vegas!

The snowboarding season this year extended through fall in to early summer. I ended up hiking to and snow-boarding down from Camp Muir, and Mt. Adams. The season ended with a summit Mt. Rainier with a small group of friends. After the 20 days ride in India, I was eager to do more touring. 2011 helped me finally get up to Vancouver on my bike and repeat parts of the memorable ride to San Francisco, this time cycling from Tillamook to Long island.

In May, I presented at the annual Microsoft Connected Health Conference with an audience of 150. In July, I was invited to talk at the open source conference (OSCON) in Portland on the Direct project, and at this conference I did my first public interview on camera! In October spoke to an audience of 1000 plus in a main session at Health 2.0 in San Francisco! Overall, a great public speaking and presentation year!

October was quite eventful. After several months of search, I ended up buying a townhouse. The best part about buying the place is that I bought it in a location I love, and was able to convince a good friend of mine to buy another unit – to be the amazing neighbors! The new dig is named – Liberation! Welcome to 2012 Liberation!

I became a proud uncle in October! Aarohi Jain arrived in this month, and I was happy to spend a couple of weekend with Vivek, Vaidehi and Mom with each one of us drooling over this beautiful soul! Welcome to 2012 Aarohi!

The last two months of year, did bring a decent amount of snow and snow-boarding this year has been quite good. Already been to Whistler and I’m loving my season’s pass at Stevens! Lots more new things hatched in these two months and I’m hoping to fish out details as they fruition!

On the vacation side, I have not taken any time-off this year partly because I spent most of that time working on a book with O’Reilly. I’m hoping to announce the details of the work soon! Hopefully a work worth forgoing the vacation for!

Lots more changes, new adventures and an exciting year ahead! Welcome 2012!

Happy New Year Card -

I’m trying to understand visual art, and two principle which have understood of late are -

1. Use of golden ratio – The clouds in the following iCloud logo are actually scaled in golden ratio!

2. 60:30:10 rule of composition – I have been using this rule to fill the palette of interiors of my new place. Essential pick 60% color as the dominant color, 30% as the secondary color and 10% as the accent color.

Any other suggestions, dear reader?

The costume is to be assembled using an old wig, a blue dye, some blue blankets to make Grover head, arms and legs, a pink nose which I recently got as birthday gift (thanks Olivia) and lots of fun!! emm…hmm.. I’ll keep you post of how this goes. emm..hmm

Click here to view this photo book larger

So why ask for forgiveness?
Well, today is the “Shyamapana festival”. Shyamapana is a festival of forgiveness; its popular among folks of Jain faith. This day is a culmination of a weeklong fest of repentance called “Paryushan“. To quote an article :

“For 357 days of the year we carry out our responsibilities to our business, our family and our career. We live a very busy, worldly life. In the process, we accumulate a lot of mental and emotional clutter. We gather unnecessary baggage of pride, fear, animosity, greed, ego and delusions in our thoughts and feelings. So Paryushan is the time to clear that clutter and make a bonfire to burn that junk, that rubbish which is corrupting our minds, our lives and our relationships. The Jains have designed the special eight days of Paryushan as a time of reflection, purification and renewal.”

regards,
Vaibhav

Fig 1. My breakfast this morning! Somewhat untraditional way to break a fast

————– ~~My Jain Influences~~ ————– Support my bike ride through southern India Support my Mt. Rainier Climb

Last weekend (Aug 6-7, 2011), I summited Mt. Rainier through the Emmons glacier. We had the best weather I have seen on the mountain so far, the views as usual were stunning and the company (Melissa, Jim & Heidi) was joyous!  What better way to spend a weekend, yeah? But wait there is more … I was climbing to support the cause of Asha for Education and fund-raise! In addition to our rope team three more Asha team rope teams summited Rainier! Kudos to all the climbers and the cause!

A little bit about the climb..

We started about 4am on Saturday from Seattle. After getting our permits we got to the White pass trail head around 8am. The glacier basin trail has been remarkably improved, thanks to all the trail volunteers. It felt like a highway! We chomped a wrap and called it lunch around 11am just before we started ascending the inter glacier. We got to Camp Schurman after an itchy scramble around 2pm.

Thanks to the rangers we had a shovel available in the snow-cave to fetch some good snow to start the long process of melting liters of water to be consumed! Given the heavy snow conditions this year there was no running water around. After a hot mountain meal and some hot chocolate we headed to bed around 7pm with the pact to do a summit push around mid-night.

    Camping at Camp Schurman

When we woke up around mid-night turned out almost everyone else was also awake. The wide open crevasses and some anticipated jumps had everyone pushing for an early summit attempt. With my relatively dim lamp and Jim leading the rope we were off to the cracks by 12:30am. After long hauls, rest stepping, some crevasse jumps, an amazing sunrise we summit around 8am! The weather was just perfect. Low winds, balmy weather, hot chocolate and wine were order of the day on the summit! Following are some pictures from our lovely ordeal!

       Lovely Sunrise                         Rope team on Summit!                                   Pic with our Asha Team

After spending an hour on the summit we had the more treacherous part of the climb – the descent! Suffice to say, we were not looking forward to the descent, we had jumped some funk stuff which with sun on the head would be quite interesting to maneuver. Thanks to Jim belay and Melissa’s singing we did make it safe to the base camp around 2pm.

Yes, we did jump some crevasses                           Picket Time!                                          Up, close!

Happy to be out of the crevasse zone!

After getting to the camp we took a short nap and started out way down from camp Schurman to the white river trail head around 4:30pm. The Asha team just has started their way down as well. The part from Camp Schurman to inter-glacier with some tricky scrambling and wide exposure was a bit nerve wrecking but once we were on the inter-glacier it was one long nice glissade down to the Glacier basin!!! After rather a long walk and lots of “are we there yet!” we got to the cars around 9pm!

A tiny break…

Earlier this year I wrote a series of pic and poem posts, this climb inspired the one below -

Song for his post is of course – Don’t stop believing.

“Beauty is abound in the beast

Grandeur and godliness make a feast

The terror is tamed with a team

Might seem a lofty goal with a pulse weak

A step at a time makes it real

And a cause to support makes it surreal!”

A little bit about the cause…

I have been volunteering for Asha for Education, Seattle chapter for a few years now! This organization is ranked among top 10 charities in “International/Development and Relief Services” by Charity Navigator. I believe in the cause of education, and through an organization like Asha I was able to help a school for hearing impaired (Mayaboli) raise money for land near my home town in India. If you believe in the cause as well please considering supporting the climb with the any form of donation!

With advent of summer and good weather there is nothing like ride a pretty country side. I have been trying to ride to Vancouver for past few years, but one thing or other led to not getting across the border. Well I guess third time is the charm!

Day 1: We started mid-day (2:30pm) on Friday (July 8th) from Redmond and got to Mt. Vernon covering about 65 miles. For this day I used the directions from recently release Google bike maps and validated them with the Cascades.org’s RSVP ride!

Day 2: We started bright and early on Sat, around 7am and took a straight shot at border after a yummy breakfast in Bellingham and some shopping for forgotten garments.. I must say every time I stop by in Bellingham I feel this place has a calling for me, very relaxing and no frills town! As always the Canadian border folks quizzed me on why I want to go to Canada and yea, do you remember the time when you where sent back from the border since you didn’t have a valid visa – look. Anyways, the ride in to Canada was not as scenic but definitely involved a lot of route finding! We tried to cut up straight and go past Hwy.1 so that we can get on Hwy 7A which is more bike friendly. I loved the water view ride on Barnett (Hwy 7A). Covering about 95 miles we arrived just in time to get a good dinner in Vancouver downtown!! And Congratulations to the real Canadian (Heidi) for making it to her home country on a bike!

Fig 2. Great food & the scenic ride!

Unlike other bike rides this one had a relaxing day in Vancouver where we went over the downtown, and indulged in arts, crafts, and foods like all Canadians too at the Granville island! May be one of these days I should start a Ten thousand villages franchise in Seattle.

Fig 3. Granville Island!

On the way back we took a scenic Amtrak ride back to Seattle, and in addition to views saw an interesting design weirdness on the restroom locks, you get extra points if you point out the defect in the comments..

Fig 4. Views on train ride from Vancouver to Seattle

Fig 5. The restroom lock puzzle

Please note I have posted a detailed bike route, feel free to compare notes. Next time I think w’ll take the direct Frazer Hwy in to Vancouver.

Inspired by Chan Chan -

“Its about numbers,

Its about numbers of the members

Fünf are the elements

Paanch are the pandavas

Cinq is good

Go Cinco Go

Ich Ni San Chi Go!”

Inspired by Männer sind schweine -

“ Wir brauchen ein Fest

Winter leads to Spring

Spring to Summer

It’s the troughs and mountains

Snow and Water

Es ist ein Fest!”

Pic and poem inspired by Flute Fantasy, DJ Nasha –

“ As the fogs withers

And the sun shimmers

Rubber hits the asphalt

A stroke at a time the journey evolves

The quest for zest survives”